Alaska Speculation Continues

There’s a division of opinion on what to expect from Trump’s meeting with Putin, somewhere in Alaska. Meanwhile it looks like the Russians are on the verge of collapsing Ukraine’s version of a Maginot Line in Donetsk—five fortified cities along a 50 mile stretch of highway. With that in mind, I recommend The Duran’s session with Robert Barnes today:

Alaska summit, final off-ramp for Trump w/ Robert Barnes (Live)

Here’s the short version. Barnes believes that Trump desperately needs an off ramp, that Putin gets that, and that Putin is prepared to offer Trump some sort of exit. Barnes is usually entertaining and he doesn’t disappoint today. He presents a semi optimistic picture of a Trump who has finally sorted out who’s giving him good advice and now understands that the US military cupboard is bare—as Doug Macgregor stated today regarding our war in Ukraine: It’s over.

The other side of that picture is the question: What took Trump so long? For years he’s been bragging about arming Ukraine to the hilt, sanctioning Russia to the hilt—in short, preparing for America’s proxy war on Russia. After years of that war, until virtually only weeks ago, he was following Kellogg’s idiotic policy of confrontation to “find out if Putin is bluffing,” repeating patently false data on Russian casualties, puffing up his tariff and secondary sanctions scheme that has failed spectacularly. What took him so long? If Putin really does offer him an exit ramp, will he recognize that?

Barnes maintains that Trump pulled this particular rabbit—the Alaska meeting—out of his hat in such a hurry because he needs to get headed down the exit ramp while Congress is recessed and while the rest of the country is occupied with other distractions—the Russia Hoax, the National Guard being deployed in DC, etc. The problem that remains is this: What can Trump offer to Putin? Putin has been very clear: De facto smoke and mirrors stuff—like the Minsk gags—are no longer enough. Before Putin started the SMO in Ukraine he sent his two draft treaties to the West, in which he demanded a new security architecture for Europe—formal treaties in writing. Trump won’t be able to deliver any sort of formal, binding agreement to Putin in the available time frame—if ever. The only realistic scenario is for Trump to simply unilaterally take the exit ramp and let the political chips fall where they may. After all, he’s got to get ready for the impending Middle East disaster that he’s blundered into, and he needs to do something about the tariff mess. “Exit ramp” really means “cut and run,” but it seems to be about the only reasonable option.

I’m going to present some partial transcripts, commentary on some of these issues. First, however, I’m going to quote Judge Nap speaking with Karen Kwiatkowski. It’s a striking capsule portrait of Trump’s personality and his tendency to simply “wing it”. Keep it in mind as we go forward with the transcripts:

You ask if he's ever read the Constitution. I've told this story so many times, so I'm no longer telling it out of school. When I was being interviewed by him for the Supreme Court, it was a long interview. Went on for two and a half hours, the first 45 or 60 minutes of which it was just the two of us alone. This was November of 2016. So, he had just defeated Mrs. Clinton. He knew he had the vacancy on the court because Justice Scalia had passed away and the Republicans had blocked President Obama's nominee. So during the course of the interview, I don't know, he changed the subject so many times and I said to him, I said, “You know, Donald”—as he insisted on being called in those days; I wouldn't call him that today—”Donald, in a month and a half, you're going to be asked to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. Have you ever read it?” He looks at me and he goes, “I don't read books.” I said, “Well, Mr. President, or Donald, it's not a book. Depending upon the size of the print and the size of the pages, it's maybe 15 or 22 pages in length. You should read it.” “I got guys like you to tell me what's in there.”

So that’s the kind of guy who’ll be going mano a mano, so to speak, with Putin. Hmmmm. This is a guy who thinks, by most accounts, that he can “do a deal” with Putin on the basis of some real estate swaps. This is a guy whose grasp of where Putin is coming from could be pretty sketchy.

So, first, we have an excerpt from Chas Freeman and the Judge. Freeman is a dyed in the wool Lib, but he’s fair to Trump in his own way. The picture that emerges, however, is of someone who is impulsive and doesn’t think things through, who doesn’t bother to sort out the ramifications of his actions in very complex situations and is attracted to snake oil “quick fixes”—tariff or sanctions shock and awe, etc. “Transactional” is the word that’s in current vogue for that type of personality.

AMB. Chas Freeman: Is Trump Running US Foreign Policy?

Well, I wouldn't consider Trump an arch neocon. I think he's confused. I also think he's transactional. In the case of West Asia, the Levant, Israel, Palestine, it's very clear the Zionist lobby controls American foreign policy and therefore Israel. And what we're seeing there is an Israel first, not an America first, policy. In other regions, we have a combination of petulance. For example, Brazil. We have his odd disconnect. Just after Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, issues a directive to every American diplomat in the world not to voice any opinion on the outcome of elections or internal political developments in other countries out of respect for their sovereignty, our president puts a 50% tariff on Brazil to overturn court decisions, put sanctions on members of the Brazilian Supreme Court and, incidentally, raises the price of coffee for every American very substantially because tariffs, as he seems to want to ignore, are import taxes paid by Americans, not by Brazilians.

Judge: Will the imposition of secondary tariffs for countries buying oil from Russia, notably China? Will that affect the policy of those countries or will they just thumb their noses and say, ‘The hell with you, Donald, we have BRICS?’

I think they are thumbing their nose on it already. I note that the imposition of tariffs on China has been suspended for another 90 days because the Chinese, unlike everyone else, stood up to the United States and deprived us of products that we absolutely require--especially rare earths and magnets which are essential for our defense industry. Other countries are in the process of conferring. Look at what India has done in response to this proposed secondary embargo of oil from Russia. Immediately after that announcement, India's national security adviser flew to Moscow and met with Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin is scheduled to visit India--probably at the end of this month, maybe early next month--at the invitation of Narendra Modi. Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin exchanged a telephone call. Narendra Modi is going to Shanghai to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting where he will meet with Xi Jinping and others. The world is in motion against these moves by America and we don't seem to have taken that possibility into account. We seem to be like the chess player who only has an opening move and nothing beyond that.

Judge: Do you think Trump understands economics 101? Does he understand the effect that these tariffs have on the lives of Americans and big picture macro these international relations which you briefly just addressed?

I wish I could cite evidence that he did understand but he's acting as though he doesn't understand. He's following Peter Navaro and other crackpot theorists about how economics work. He's listening to Stephen Miller on many issues. And he's destroying our reputation. We are burning bridges internationally, not building them, and we are agitating other countries that wanted to be our friend to become our opponents and to cooperate with each other against us, as I've just indicated in the case of India.

I’m not sure what the relevance of economic theory is. My view has been that I believe that Trump thought he could use a shock and awe approach to get his program for maintaining King Dollar hegemony in place before anyone had time to react. It didn’t work. But that’s the type of impulsive behavior we’ve seen repeatedly in Trump 2.0.

Now we go to a much longer transcript from Doug and Danny. The strong point of this one is that Mac gets into the difficulties of Trump’s situation which Robert Barnes tends to elide a bit. While I tend to agree with Barnes that Putin will be willing to offer Trump access to some sort of exit ramp, the mechanics of that will not be easy. Moreover, while Putin may be willing to do Trump some sort of favor, he’s under no compulsion whatsoever to do so. Worse, he has every reason to distrust Trump. So, we start with a bit of craziness from the despicable Mike Pompeo:

Col Doug Macgregor: Russia SUDDEN ADVANCE Near Pokrovsk

Pompeo: President Trump has put real pressure on the Russians. It's why Putin's talking there. There's a good reason that Joe Biden didn't get asked for a meeting with Vladimir Putin. He didn't need to. He could continue to roll. Putin knows that he's played out the string. He might try to stiff President Trump on Friday, 96 hours from now. I'd be very surprised because the cost to him if he does that will be extremely high.

DD [laughing]: So, yeah, Putin's string has run out. What could he possibly have in mind? Why would he say something like that that's in complete contradiction to observed reality?

Mac lays it on the line right at the start. DC, New York, City of London. That’s the short version.

Mac: Well, it's deliberate fiction. But remember, the people that funded Pompeo are also funding President Trump and Lindsey Graham and others. In other words, the same cabal that wants to push us into a major war with Iran is absolutely, unconditionally, committed to the destruction of Russia. So they're paying the bills. Why would he say anything else? It's all nonsense. It's a big lie.

Next, Mac pops the balloon of expectation that Trump can walk into a meeting with Putin and “do a deal” based on some territorial swaps. That’s not what Putin is after, but it seems doubtful that Trump gets that.

First of all, let's get something straight. President Putin did not ask for this meeting. This meeting came at the request of President Trump. Let's go back and understand that Mr. Witkoff, the real estate mogul, flew at Trump's request and after Trump asked specifically for President Putin and his inner circle to meet with Mr. Witkoff. It was clear to the Russians that President Trump needed this meeting. Then we get all of these contradictory statements coming out of Trump. 'Well, this could be a territory swap, or this could be something else.’ This is a very hastily organized meeting that has no preparation behind it whatsoever from our side.

Now, the Russians are prepared because, as President Putin has repeated over and over again, 'Our position is clear. It's unambiguous.' We went through this in June of 2024. We've been through it in June of 2025. How many times do we have to go through this? Putin’s position is clear. We're the ones that have simply insisted on mission impossible, which is the destruction of Russia and the removal of Putin.

If Trump wants Putin to offer him an exit ramp, Putin needs to know what Trump can offer in return. Why would Putin do Trump a favor for nothing? But Putin, the master of detail, will not be rushed into some purely verbal agreement. Not this time.

Now, have those aims changed? Well, I think they have. But has President Trump enunciated very clearly what our interests are? Simply saying that our interest is the destruction of the Russians in Ukraine and the loss of Crimea and Russia's perpetual sort of isolation in the world. Those aren't goals. Those aren't even attainable. They don't make any sense. So the question we have to ask ourselves is, What does President Trump really want? And the bad news is, I'm not sure he's sure. ... President Putin is the master of detail. ... He knows us probably better than President Trump does. Putin knows that we have very little that we can provide to the Ukrainians. Most of the stuff that's being promised will show up in a year, and they'll be lucky to get 17 minutes of air and missile defense out of it. We know that. Putin knows that. So, Putin's going to walk into the room armed with all of this information. What is President Trump coming in with? In other words, what is he offering that would be remotely interesting to Putin?

Could there be some non-Ukraine deals on offer that would serve as CYA for Trump as he heads down the exit ramp? Maybe, but they’re all problematic—they’re long term propositions, and Trump is looking for a quick fix.

Now, lately, we've heard two other things that are kind of interesting. Well, President Trump may try to cut a deal on the Arctic. ... That's going to take months and lots of negotiation. So, you're not going to get a deal on the Arctic. So, if that's part of it, that's crazy. There is one area where there could be at least preliminary agreement on future discussions that could be useful to them and to us. That would be on nuclear weapons. We're the ones that walked away from the INF treaty. We're the ones that essentially threw most of the arms control into the gutter. If we go forward and say, 'you know, we've reconsidered, we'd like to reopen discussions on these treaties and we think we may be able to come to an agreement or an arrangement,' that makes sense. I think the Russians would probably say, Yes, on the nuclear level. But when it comes to Ukraine, what is there to discuss? We have never recognized Russia's legitimate national security interests in Ukraine. ... So where is the readiness to recognize Russia's legitimate national security interests?

...

We see a lot of evidence that President Trump exerts almost no command authority over NATO. ... I don't know what Trump can deliver on now. What Trump could do that I think would make infinite sense is that he could talk for whatever number of hours, listen carefully to the Russians, something he doesn't do. ... And if you don't think you can deliver because you cannot deliver Zelensky and his criminal regime in Kiev, you can't deliver on the British or the French or the Germans, then what do you do? You emerge from this meeting and say, 'We've had very useful discussions, and I'm glad that we had this opportunity to talk because there are areas of agreement between me and President Putin. Unfortunately, my European allies will not support anything that I am likely to do. And under the circumstances, I've decided that it's time for us to disengage and get out and turn the future of Ukraine over to the Europeans, who after all live in Europe. We Americans do not.' Now, is he going to do that? I don't think so. I think he'll just drag on without anything coming out of it.

In that situation, Mac’s hope is that what you might call the “frontline” Central and East European states may take matters into their own hands and start talking to the Russians directly. By now even the Poles should see the doublecross down the road. The globalists of DC, New York, and the City of London don’t care for Poland or Hungary or Romania any more than they care about the lives of Ukrainians. This is all a continuation of World War I and World War II. That would be constructive. It was the globalist oligarchs who wanted the war on Russia as well as the war on Iran, and they’re the ones who ultimately control Zelensky. Putin totally understands this, and he therefore also understands the limits of Trump’s deal making authority. Putin knows that, ultimately, it’s not Trump he needs to worry about:

Zelensky was picked up by oligarchs, billionaire oligarchs, who put him in there along with the help of Kagan and Blinken and all sorts of other people go all the way back to 2014. These people want something that can't happen: the destruction of Russia. So we have on one pole the European wish, which is really the globalist last gasp that wants to see Europe destroyed as a civilization and doesn't give a damn about us. And on the other pole are the Russians—who are not going to be destroyed. Now, how do you make a compromise between these two groups? The globalists who are pushing this war and dragging us into it and the Russians who desperately want an end to the war? But the Russians can't end it unless they can be certain that a future government in Ukraine will not emerge to rekindle the war and kill them. I mean, remember this. The Russians are the people that found the 23 biolabs, where they discovered all of this research designed to murder Slavs. This this is not a minor issue if you're a Russian. The Ukrainians haven't come clean on this. They can't. If there were a real international court of justice they'd be in a lot of trouble. Today I was reading accounts of the numbers of people being murdered in towns and villages that the Russians are overrunning that are no longer being defended. Who's killing these people and why? Are these Ukrainians that have said we're not going to fight?

Just a few more days.